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Python overtakes Java to become the second-most popular programming language

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Re: Python overtakes Java to become the second-most popular programming language

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As to how they get the numbers, this is TIOBE's methodology: [1] Since there are many questions about the way the TIOBE index is assembled, a special page is devoted to its definition. Basically the calculation comes down to counting hits for the search query +" programming" In the next few sections it is explained what search engines qualify, what programming languages qualify and how the ratings are exactly calcula…

> Chaturbate.com: PORN_SITE Gave me a laugh. Engineers would initially qualify a porn search engine to search for this sort of experiment

Well, yes. Why wouldn't you? They hire engineers, and they have programming projects. Meets all requirements.

Re: Python overtakes Java to become the second-most popular programming language

#302
post #13

I personally find the methodology used in TIOBE very dubious. It frequently has very large differences with other metrics, and often "feels wrong" compared to those other metrics. It mainly seems to massively overvalue historical significance, the older the language the higher it is. E.g. the current ranking has Perl 5x more popular than Typescript, and Visual Basic 2x as popular than PHP.

I will say that I've been coding for almost 20 years and I think I've only had to touch perl once, so you may be right about that.

It's definitely the case that Python is very popular though. It's everywhere. As others have pointed out, it's become very prevalent in scientific/academic circles. Outside of that, it's very useful for scripting. They teach it in universities as an introductory language. It's in use at every workplace I've been.

Re: Python overtakes Java to become the second-most popular programming language

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every car, every industrial machine, every rocket, plane and tractor as well as the entire stack that your web applications run on in the cloud, the operating system, the infrastructure have significant parts written in C or C++. I think you need to take into account that the world of software extends beyond web applications and white collar services.

I think what they're saying is that applications are an order of magnitude more numerous than infrastructure software. Sounds plausible to me.

Is it ?

We sure are using more apps than ever. But I think we are also using more "smart" things than ever, and not just in the buzzword sense.

A ton of everyday object now have chips, from toothbrushes, thermometers, door bells, car keys, fire alarms, lights, even charging cables.

Considering drivers are coded for every variations of these appliances and chips, it look to me to be a tremendous amoubt of code written all over the world. Especially as writing code is cheaper than adapting hardware, even different uses of the same chip could get different drivers.

Re: Python overtakes Java to become the second-most popular programming language

#304

I was a total raving Python evangelist for the first 12 years of my coding career, and then got a job as the CTO for a Python based startup that had been running absent a technical leader for 5 years, with relatively junior coders making all the decisions. I still love Python, but I now have a completely different attitude to hyper-dynamic languages (like Python, Ruby, Clojure, Elixir, etc). In my new opinion, they a…

If you have junior engineers you can't let them run willy nilly, you have to make them slow down, come up with a design (obviously I'm talking about >$medium_size projects), have a senior engineer review it, and then let them go. They will do much better and have more confidence in their work. Obviously you have to follow up weekly. They're junior engineers for a reason. Even a language like Rust or OCaml won't keep them from effing things up.

Re: Python overtakes Java to become the second-most popular programming language

#305

I was a Python dev for 14 years or so (now doing mostly personal projects in C/C++, Scheme, Clojure), and 10 years ago met my partner who is a biologist. I think one thing programmers underestimate is how many scientists and academics are using Python. It's not just ML, it's pretty much every kind of scientist and tons of non-science academics too. The fact that it's a great "casual" or part-time language is huge for…

Ya, I think it's great that Python has become a sorts of universal / unified language these days. When I was a student, people used a bunch of different languages to write software, depending on what group they were in, or what the culture there was. You had Matlab, R, Octave, Java, C++, Lisp, etc. all depending on what type of scientist or engineers you worked with (Statisticians used R/SPSS/etc., Physicists and Ele…

>Physicists and Electrical Engineers used Matlab or C++

Trained as an EE and this is true. We used MATLAB/Simulink for signal processing and control systems. Octave, too (because our sensor technology teacher was more comfortable with that). x86 and Microship Assembly, C, and Pascal. Used LTSpice and NI Multisim for circuit design and simulation. Cadsoft EAGLE for printed circuit board (PCB) work. Played a bit with LabVIEW.

However, I started coding as a child with BASIC/x86 Assembly/C/Pascal/VB/Delphi. Doing mostly Python for the past several years. I suppose one could find reasons to "love" or "hate" anything, but I always found that nuance keeps sanity.

Re: Python overtakes Java to become the second-most popular programming language

#306
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This precise struggle is why Go is created, and also why Rob Pike said what he said. The industry needs a statically typed language with good ergonomics (not typing too much) and performant. I agree with you, asking everyone to be discipline with their code in a dynamic language is a bit too much to ask (unfortunately).

If there is something similar with Django on golang ecosystem, I would use golang more. Battery-included web framework seem to be out of style these days and no one invest in developing one for newer language like golang. As a single developer working mostly alone, microservice-based development is quite painful.

Go needs to be renamed to something that can be googled.

Re: Python overtakes Java to become the second-most popular programming language

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you make technical decisions based on what hyponthenictal new owners would prefer in a hyponthenictal acquisition in 5 years?

What's "hyponthenictal"? You used it twice, but it's not on Google...

It's a misspelling of "hypothetical"

Re: Python overtakes Java to become the second-most popular programming language

#308

I was a Python dev for 14 years or so (now doing mostly personal projects in C/C++, Scheme, Clojure), and 10 years ago met my partner who is a biologist. I think one thing programmers underestimate is how many scientists and academics are using Python. It's not just ML, it's pretty much every kind of scientist and tons of non-science academics too. The fact that it's a great "casual" or part-time language is huge for…

I'm one of those scientists, working in industry R&D. I use Python for everything from Jupyter notebooks to a roughly 8000 line program that runs a prototype of a product. Python pulled me away from Visual Basic several years ago, and then I have a longer history going back through Turbo Pascal and ultimately originating with primordial BASIC. On the hardware side, I use C within the Arduino ecosystem. I've got rough…

I'm working with some researches on about ~40k lines of Python disease modelling code and these are the things that helped us becomes more productive:

- tests (unit, smoke, acceptance) (eg. https://mattsegal.dev/alternate-test-styles.html, https://understandlegacycode.com/approval-tests/)

- continuous integration (via GitHub actions eg: https://mattsegal.dev/pytest-on-github-actions.html)

- 10x performance improvements via cProfile (https://julien.danjou.info/guide-to-python-profiling-cprofil...)

- getting fast feedback on code changes by visualizing outputs with Streamlit (https://www.streamlit.io/)

- input parameter validation (eg. https://pydantic-docs.helpmanual.io/, https://mattsegal.dev/cerberus-config-validation.html)

- total automation of data processing job (eg. https://www.prefect.io/ - we don't use this but that's the kind of thing we have)

Re: Python overtakes Java to become the second-most popular programming language

#309

I was a Python dev for 14 years or so (now doing mostly personal projects in C/C++, Scheme, Clojure), and 10 years ago met my partner who is a biologist. I think one thing programmers underestimate is how many scientists and academics are using Python. It's not just ML, it's pretty much every kind of scientist and tons of non-science academics too. The fact that it's a great "casual" or part-time language is huge for…

I'm one of those scientists, working in industry R&D. I use Python for everything from Jupyter notebooks to a roughly 8000 line program that runs a prototype of a product. Python pulled me away from Visual Basic several years ago, and then I have a longer history going back through Turbo Pascal and ultimately originating with primordial BASIC. On the hardware side, I use C within the Arduino ecosystem. I've got rough…

Your post reminds me of a segment[0] of a Pycon keynote where Jacob Kaplan Moss talks about "real programmers". One of the anecdotes was that he was hiring programmers and he stumbled on a student who had worked on a project who told him she can't apply because she "isn't really a programmer".

>I've asked them to help me bring myself up to date on good techniques

Here's an old draft of our onboarding document[1], and a few comments here on HN about this[2].

PS: in case anyone is wondering how I found the segment in question, I use a Chrome extension called "YouTube Captions Search"[3] went to the video, activated closed captions, clicked on the extension's icon, and searched for "geographic" because I remembered that the system the student had built was a geographic information system (GIS).

- [0]: https://youtu.be/iOp0mSDCh6c?t=1084

- [1]: https://jhadjar.gitlab.io/kbase/hiring/#resources-to-learn-o...

- [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15576496

- [3]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-captions-s...

Re: Python overtakes Java to become the second-most popular programming language

#310

I was a total raving Python evangelist for the first 12 years of my coding career, and then got a job as the CTO for a Python based startup that had been running absent a technical leader for 5 years, with relatively junior coders making all the decisions. I still love Python, but I now have a completely different attitude to hyper-dynamic languages (like Python, Ruby, Clojure, Elixir, etc). In my new opinion, they a…

I feel like it's nothing to do with the language. The quality of the team will reflect on the quality of the codebase. Period. Quality of teams/codebases is always going to follow some type of distribution.

Engineers are perpetually keeping mental tallies and notes in search of data on which tools, methods, and technologies will help them reach the promised land. I think really the majority of that is noise.

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